In computing, a file system and applications running in the file system generate log messages. The log messages may be used by an administrator to monitor system performance, by an application developer to debug problems within an application, and/or by the administrator/application developer/a third party to root-cause issues leading to system outage. Log messages are stored in log files, and log files can be very large due to the length of log messages. When a log file becomes large and constrained by storage space, the log file needs to be updated frequently by overwriting older log messages with newer log messages to remain within the allocated storage space. The frequent overwriting makes the log file less valuable in tracking system performance or troubleshooting system issues. Also, when the log file becomes large, it is harder to transfer the log file from one system to another as it takes more storage space to store and more network bandwidth and transmission time to transfer. Thus it is desirable to reduce the size of log files.